Day After Thoughts: rant edition

[dbair1967]

Havent posted one of these in awhile and honestly thought about taking a self imposed ban till draft time after last weeks Giants debacle, but I find myself needing to bitch about stuff to you guys for therapeutic reasons.

1) We all knew and expected the team wouldn't be as good without Romo. He should have been the MVP of the league last year and the voters who were ignorant and didn't give it to him are seeing that beyond a shadow of a doubt now. That said, there's no way this team should be THIS bad without him. They won 12 games last year and UPGRADED the overall talent, especially on defense. Now they've lost 5 straight games.

2) Bad/poorly coached teams find ways to lose. That's what they did under Switzer. That's what they did under Gailey. That's what they did under Campo. That's what they did with Parcells. That's what they did with Wade, and now that's what they are doing again with Garrett. This is the epitome of a poorly coached team. They don't block as well as they should (its ok, but it breaks down too much and Hanna has gotten far worse and Free is back to being a major weak spot) and the tackling is absolutely abysmal. I don't know if stats are kept officially on missed tackles, but if it is I would bet a shit ton of $$$ that we are at or very near the top of that dubious list. We miss tons of routine tackles every single game it seems. The one constant in all this from Switzer to Red Headed Idiot- JERRUH

3) We had all hoped Cassel would be an improvement over Weeden, but he isn't. His football mind probably works better than Weeden's did (ie, processing information, reading defenses etc etc) but his arm is so bad that it doesn't matter. He offers no downfield throwing ability at all (and I'm not just talking about throwing a streak down the sideline, any type of intermediate route that needs to be thrown with some zip, he cant do it). If only we could stick Weeden's arm on Cassel, maybe we'd have something. They should probably bench Cassel and go back to Weeden, but I'm sure they wont.

4) I don't think there's any doubt now after watching, they let Dez play yesterday only because they'd lost 4 straight and the team is desperate. I'd guess he played at maybe 75%, maybe not even that.

5) Why is Cole Beasley still the punt returner? Why'd they deactivate Brice Butler this week? What happened to Anthony Hitchens yesterday, did he get injured early? (we missed all of Seattle's opening drive due to Falcone game going to OT). I see Hitchens was credited for a QB hit early, but when I finally got the game I saw Kyle Wilbur playing in Hitchens spot and never saw Hitchens in the game. Lastly, other than the couple of jet sweep type handoff plays that worked last week (didnt work this week, although they faked it a couple times and Seattle paid attention) why does Lucky Whitehead stay active? Brings nothing to the game as a true WR, they don't let him return punts no matter how bad Beasley is and yesterday added a bone headed penalty that cost us a nice gain by McFadden for a first down in the redzone. We ended up not converting on 3rd and had to settle for a FG.

6) Really was excited to see what Rolando McClain could add to the defense, but either he isn't 100% or just isn't trying hard enough. I mentioned the missed tackle thing above, and he is one of the guys along with Church and a couple others that miss tackles routinely. Hitchens was better at MLB than McClain has been so far. McClain has also got lost in coverage several times. Last year McClain added a real physical presence to the D and was not a liability in coverage.

7) Cole Beasley is a zero as a punt returner and without Romo out there, is a zero as a WR. Like many others players (very long list) he's having a lousy season. You could add Tyrone Crawford, Barry Church, JJ Wilcox, Doug Free, etc etc as well.

8) My rants wouldn't be complete with reference to bad officiating, and it was pretty bad again yesterday. I vividly recall Joe Gibbs getting a 15 yd penalty for calling a timeout twice in a row (called one to ice a kicker, then called TO immediately when they lined up again). He readily admitted he didnt know the rule, unless its been changed Seattle should have gotten the same thing. If the rule had been changed, then it still doesn't account for what happened to Seattle having 12 or 13 guys on the field. I don't understand why one penalty or the other wasn't enforced. Also, after the ridiculous ticky call last week on Devin Street, how could they then turn around and just ignore the blatant offensive PI by the Seattle WR on Jimmy Graham's 3rd down catch on Seattle GW drive? The guy wasn't even remotely attempting to run a route, he just started blocking. They replayed the Wilson TD and still upheld it, even though its pretty obvious the ball never crossed the plane. Lastly, why wasn't the clock stopped on the final drive on Lynch and Russell Wilson's out of bounds plays? Someone in CZ even posted the time when Wilson went out of bounds but the clock kept moving and we lost something like 40 seconds or so because of it. Where was Red headed idiot on these out of bounds plays? Why didnt he make the refs come over and explain it?

9) For the 2nd straight week the defense held a team to 13 pts (Giants got two tds on ST and int return). That said, we played the team with one of the worst OL's in football (and they had to deactivate their one solid OL, Okung at LT) that coming in had given up the most sacks in the league, and we cant even get ONE fucking sack? With the game on the line yesterday, the defense promptly responds by giving up a 17 play drive that eats up a ton of clock. 7 games into the season, this D has a grand total of 4 takeaways. To say this defense makes no plays is an understatement.

I guess the positive is other than New England they've been in every game and arguably should have won the other 4 (or at least 3 of 4). But they keep finding ways to lose and I don't believe that's an accident. Right now we're probably the worst offensive team in football and the defense doesn't make enough big plays to help offset that. Couple that with dreadful special teams play (other than Bailey) and it adds up to what we see now. I was convinced when Romo went out that we were good enough to at least manage 3 or 4 wins, now it appears we're likely going to go 0-7 without him.

 

[ThoughtExperiment]

Your #5 contains the kinds of questions our press corps should be asking the Clapper at the PC, but they adore him too much to make him uncomfortable. I mean, he smiles at them and asks how we doin guys and tells them it's good to see them. So they can't ask him tough questions and actually get answers. They'll be satisfied with his empty generic nonsense.

And I don't blame refs, but I don't understand why when Wilson dove out of bounds, the clock kept running. Made no sense to me.

 

[bbgun]

Lastly, why wasn't the clock stopped on the final drive on Lynch and Russell Wilson's out of bounds plays? Someone in CZ even posted the time when Wilson went out of bounds but the clock kept moving and we lost something like 40 seconds or so because of it. Where was Red headed idiot on these out of bounds plays? Why didnt he make the refs come over and explain it?

Lynch went out of bounds at 2:07 and the clock did stop. Not sure what Wilson play you're referencing. The last play? He slid inbounds and was touched, so the clock kept rolling.

edit: I found the Wilson play in question. Jones made contact with Wilson, and Wilson's knee hit in the field of play, so keeping the clock running was the right call.

 

[dbair1967]

Lynch went out of bounds at 2:07 and the clock did stop. Not sure what Wilson play you're referencing. The last play? He slid inbounds and was touched, so the clock kept rolling.

I didn't notice that someone had touched him in bounds first, if so I guess that explains it.

 

[dbair1967]

Here were the two plays with the clock I was referring to. The Wilson one says scrambles right end, but it was the play where he ran left and slid out of bounds.


2nd and 4 at DAL 14

(3:10 - 4th) M.Lynch right end pushed ob at DAL 17 for -3 yards (S.Lee)

(3:01 - 4th) Timeout #3 by DAL at 03:01.

3rd and 7 at DAL 17

(3:01 - 4th) (Shotgun) R.Wilson scrambles right end pushed ob at DAL 7 for 10 yards (B.Church)

 

[bbgun]

2nd and 4 at DAL 14

(3:10 - 4th) M.Lynch right end pushed ob at DAL 17 for -3 yards (S.Lee)

oh, well you see that all the time. a runner going out of bounds does not automatically stop the clock. they had effectively stopped him from progressing any farther than he did, so the clock keeps running. Lynch wasn't fighting for more yards when they shoved him out of bounds.

 

[ThoughtExperiment]

Yeah, they've been very liberal with the forward progress rule along the sideline for years now... Supposedly that came down from the league office to keep the games moving along as much as possible. Must stay in those TV windows, you know. But on that Wilson dive, I didn't see anyone hit him. Even if Jones touched him, I thought he clearly went down of his own volition, not by contact from the defender.

Not that it made one bit of difference in the loss. I mean we turned the ball over on downs when we did get it back, for gawd's sake. So a few seconds didn't matter.

 

[dbair1967]

Yeah, they've been very liberal with the forward progress rule along the sideline for years now... Supposedly that came down from the league office to keep the games moving along as much as possible. Must stay in those TV windows, you know. But on that Wilson dive, I didn't see anyone hit him. Even if Jones touched him, I thought he clearly went down of his own volition, not by contact from the defender.

Not that it made one bit of difference in the loss. I mean we turned the ball over on downs when we did get it back, for gawd's sake. So a few seconds didn't matter.

Oh its not that I think that it mattered in the outcome, but that I thought they had got it wrong.

The forward progress thing irritates the shit out of me because the past couple years with our guys (especially Murray and Dez) officials would let those plays go forever, a couple of them directly resulted in fumbles we lost. Then you see plays like where we forced fumbles and they claim forward progress was stopped, but they seemed to stop it almost instantly.

 

[dbair1967]

Lynch went out of bounds at 2:07 and the clock did stop. Not sure what Wilson play you're referencing. The last play? He slid inbounds and was touched, so the clock kept rolling.

edit: I found the Wilson play in question. Jones made contact with Wilson, and Wilson's knee hit in the field of play, so keeping the clock running was the right call.

View attachment 3138

Thanks, originally I didnt see Jones make contact and was pretty sure Church had not. I deleted the game in disgust afetrward so didnt go back and look myself.

 

[Midswat]

Read an article that said calling back to back TO's is only a penalty when the coach is trying to ice a kicker. Carrol wasn't so no penalty.

Also 12 men is only a penalty when too many are in the huddle, which they weren't.

 

[dbair1967]

Also 12 men is only a penalty when too many are in the huddle, which they weren't.

Pretty sure this isn't true. If you have 12 guys on the field, that's more than allowed. If 11 guys huddle up and the other guy stands off to the left, that's a penalty. It looked like Seattle had 12 or 13 guys on the field.

The fact that Carroll was doing all he could to contain that grin afterward was explanation enough. He knew he caught a mammoth break.

The way we were playing it might not have mattered anyway, we still might not have score 7. But you never know.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

Read an article that said calling back to back TO's is only a penalty when the coach is trying to ice a kicker. Carrol wasn't so no penalty.

Also 12 men is only a penalty when too many are in the huddle, which they weren't.

It's not a penalty but you're not allowed to call consecutive TOs.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

I disagree with you dbair about Tyrone Crawford. We're pretty stout up the middle and I think it starts with him.

 

[dbair1967]

I disagree with you dbair about Tyrone Crawford. We're pretty stout up the middle and I think it starts with him.

I think he's been playing hurt since the Giants game when he came out with the knee thing (then hurt the same one again against Philly or Atlanta, cant remember) but he hasn't looked the same as last yr IMO, injured or not. He was more explosive last year and seemed unblockable at times, even when he was doubled some.

 

[Omegasupreme]

I think he's been playing hurt since the Giants game when he came out with the knee thing (then hurt the same one again against Philly or Atlanta, cant remember) but he hasn't looked the same as last yr IMO, injured or not. He was more explosive last year and seemed unblockable at times, even when he was doubled some.

I think Crawford plays solidly but unless he gets someone equal or better than him as a DT complement, he is not going to shine as often as he could. He gets Hayden as his yoke and Hayden is another one of those question marks on the team that makes you wonder if they would be in the nfl at all if not on the Cowboys.

 

[dbair1967]

I cant make this embed the way I'd prefer, but check out the video clip. Its Broaddus showing three key missed opportunities, all three COULD have been TD's. One is clearly just inexperience with Collins (who played a really good game) but the two on Cassel are bad. You'd expect that kind of stuff from a rookie or something, but this guy has been in the league a long time and has been coached by some good people. He totally misreads two potential game changing plays.

Film Room: Missed Opportunities Against Seattle | Dallas Cowboys